Allahabad HC quashes remand order against man

The Allahabad High Court has quashed the remand order against a petitioner and directed his release upon furnishing a bond, stating that he was not provided the grounds at the time of his arrest. The bench comprising Justices J J Munir and Tarun Saxena also criticised the police’s approach to constitutional safeguards.

It observed that they have “traditionally paid scant regard” to the requirements of Article 22(1) of the Constitution, which makes it mandatory for the police to provide grounds of arrest to the detainee, and often fail to appreciate the significance of fundamental rights when exercising the power of arrest.

The high court also directed the Sessions Judge in Sambhal to ensure that magistrates under his administrative control do not authorise police or judicial remand mechanically on printed pro formas and do not remand an accused without first ascertaining that the constitutional requirement of communicating the grounds of arrest has been complied with.

The court said police officers often fail to understand that there are always two sides to a fact or an allegation regarding an offence, and remain partisan, looking at just one side.

It further observed that police training bereft of knowledge of the law deprives policemen of the forensic eye to understand legal implications, resulting in a continuing “tug of war” between judicial orders safeguarding individual liberty and “dogged breaches by the police”.

“This arrest memo does not carry grounds of arrest, but reasons of arrest (of petitioner Rakesh). The reasons have already been distinguished from grounds by the Supreme Court in the Prabir Purkayastha case. There is absolutely no ground mentioned in the memo of arrest,” the court observed in its judgment dated July 27.